


The Universe Knows What It's Doing

by SassySarah



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, First Words, Happy Ending, I didn't mean for it to come out like this, I don't normally do angst, Not Beta Read, Soulmate AU, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, feelings about possible significant age difference, introspective, it's a little angsty, minimal dialogue, so this should be interesting, vague references to CA:tWS and CA:CW, written in a fit of insomnia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-06-04 23:43:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6680758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SassySarah/pseuds/SassySarah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darcy deals with being born with her soulmate's words and what she thinks that means, while Steve deals with having a younger soulmate or none at all before he wakes up from the ice and after, he doesn't know what to think.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Universe Knows What It's Doing

**Author's Note:**

> Another soulmate au - I just can’t seem to help myself.
> 
> My headcanon for this story is that Darcy is bi - it's not really talked about, but when Darcy thinks about her soulmate, I try to keep it pretty neutral, because she'd be happy with a man or a woman. Steve thinks about "his girl" because he's straight (in this story anyway).
> 
> Also: I want to say, in this story, Darcy isn’t thrilled with the idea of having a significantly older soulmate and Steve is kind of uncomfortable about having a younger soulmate, and I don’t want to upset anyone who feels differently, nor do I have anything against relationships with large age gaps, it just kinda wrote itself this way, so...yeah. Also, I have no idea what happened at the end, but I just didn't have any more to add *shrugs*

Darcy had been born with her words. She thought this was normal until she went to kindergarten, where her teacher was very surprised to see the words on little Darcy’s arm when she raised her hand and her sleeve fell. So Darcy started looking at her classmates, and then asking if she could see their words, but no one else in her class had them. Darcy knew about soulmates and words and was very distraught that no one in her class had a soulmate. Mrs. Herden ended up calling Darcy’s mother, and Darcy switched schools.

In her new class there were two other kids, one girl and one boy, who had words. None of them could read yet, but they compared their words anyway, like children do. Mr. Swan was very nice and wasn’t surprised about her words at all. He even said she was lucky that her words were written so prettily. She agreed, her words were prettier than her new friends’ were, and because her words contained her name, Darcy had learned how to write her name tracing the letters on her arm. To five year old Darcy, it wasn’t a big deal. She liked her new school and her new friends.

It wasn’t until Darcy was ten and in the fifth grade that she really started to understand. By that time, five of her fellow classmates had gotten words. Words and soulmates and puberty/sex education was all one unit, taught in Health class over a period of three weeks. Most people, Darcy learned, were not born with their words. In fact, only about 5% of the world’s population were born with words, and the percentages rose for every year a person grew, with an overwhelming 60% getting their words between the ages of 12 to 18. This majority happened because people got their words when their soulmate turned 15. There were, of course, the soulmates who met before one or both of the pair was 15, and in that case, the words were known to appear as they were being spoken, no matter the age.

It had taken Darcy more than a few moments to understand. She had been born with her words, which meant that her soulmate, whoever they were, was already 15 or older at her time of birth. Her soulmate was old - like really, really old. Darcy didn’t want a super old soulmate! High schoolers were scary sometimes, and old people were gross and just old. She cried. Later that day her mother tried to explain, but Darcy wouldn’t listen. How could the universe get it so wrong?

When Darcy was 14, she and her mother moved two states up to Washington, so that her mom could take care of Darcy’s ailing grandfather. Two hours south of Seattle, which she loved simply because it was called The Emerald City, Darcy got away with wearing layers because of the rain. Darcy moved into her mom’s old corner room, which was the smallest but had a window seat, and she told everyone at her new school that she didn’t have her words yet. Nobody questioned it, or her taste for long sleeves, and a year later it was easy to fake excitement one day and say she’d gotten her words over the weekend. It was nice to pretend that she and her soulmate were the same age.

In college, people didn’t really ask anymore. She was over 18, and people who saw her words just assumed she’d gotten them in the few years before, like they undoubtedly had. Darcy worried about discovering her soulmate was a professor from one of her classes, or one of the old people who went back to college later in life. As she had gotten older herself, she tried to reconcile having a soulmate so much older than her, but every time she told herself the universe knew what it was doing and to just give it a chance, she would count up the minimum age difference in her head and it would all fall apart. At 20, her soulmate was at least 35, possibly older. What would they have possibly have in common? She hoped they wouldn’t meet until she was older and hoped that by the time they did, she would be okay with the age gap.

Of course, things didn’t go quite how she was expecting them to. 

\----

Steve had both looked forward to and dreaded the day he got his words. As a child he’d been seriously sick often enough that he thought he might never get his words, though he never said that out loud. Not when his ma told him again and again that there was a girl out there for him, that he had to be strong so he could meet her. The older he got, the better he got at handling his many ailments. He began to hope again. His ma and Bucky always said it, so maybe it was true. His girl was out there and he had to be strong for her. At the same time, it was hard to imagine any dame being happy to discover their soulmate was small and sickly. 

The year he turned 15, he started checking himself for words as best he could every morning. He continued the next year, and the year after that. He stopped for a while after his ma died, until Bucky started asking him everyday. By 18 though, he was starting to lose hope again. Not everyone had a soulmate, he knew. Maybe he was one of them, the universe too smart to pair him up with some dame when he was probably gonna die young and awful anyway. He still checked every morning, but it was more routine by then. If the universe had seen fit to give him a soulmate, shouldn’t she be 15 by now? He was already 19, at least four years older than her. He didn’t know how to feel about that. Bucky’s sister Rebecca was 14, and she seemed so young and just… Steve didn’t know what to think. It was hard to imagine himself meeting some young girl like Rebecca and falling in love with her.

Every year he got older, the more worried he got. 5 years’ difference, then 6, then 7. Bucky still had hope, said it was still going to happen, for the both of them, but Steve wasn’t so sure. Bucky was tall and handsome, could handle himself in a fight, any girl would be glad to have him even if he was a little older than her - Steve, not so much. He knew his body’s limitations but his mind didn’t seem to match it. Bucky was always telling him off for getting in one fight or another, always going on about how he was gonna get himself killed before he even met his girl, but Steve was really starting to believe he just didn’t have a girl out there. He was 23, didn’t have words, and even the Army said he had more problems than he was worth. 

After the serum and his transformation, Steve wondered if it would affect his chances of getting words. Most days, he thought he just didn’t have a soulmate and he tried to tell himself he was okay with that. It was highly likely he would die in the war anyway, and this way the only person who would have to grieve would be Bucky. But on the days that small voice whispered in the back of his head and hoped for words to appear, he wondered what it might be like, if it happened. If there was a dame out there for him, she’d be much younger. Maybe he would survive the war, and they’d meet when she was older. That was what he hoped for anyway. He couldn’t imagine getting words tomorrow and meeting a girl not out of high school yet - they had to meet when she was older. But that, too, didn’t much make him happy either. Even if he got his words today, he would still have years and years alone before he could feel comfortable pursuing her, if he ever did. 

When he brought the plane down in the Atlantic, he thought that was the end of it. Bucky, all he'd had left in the world, was gone and at least Steve could die knowing he was saving people. It was official - Steve Rogers did not have a soulmate.

\----

But then, he'd not died. It was a nasty, shocking surprise, blow after blow seeming to form in his mind. He'd not died, but nearly everyone he knew had. Or they'd lived, and he was separated by experience and age from both those he'd known and those born into this new century. He was out of place, out of time, and he didn't know how to deal with it. He'd been awake for over a week when he saw the words sprawled across the left side of his back, accidentally catching sight of them in the gym’s mirror as he changed after his shower. He wanted to laugh and cry at the same time. He had no way of knowing when they appeared, no way of knowing how old his soulmate was. 

Was this why he had survived? To be here, in this time, for this dame? What could they possibly have in common? How was she ever going to understand him, understand what he'd gone through? Having a soulmate at all still felt impossible. 

When he found Bucky again, he had words too, and Steve found that small whisper of hope again. 

\----

Stark was throwing a party and Steve didn't really want to go. He was expected to be there; it was important for the government and the public to see that the Avengers were standing together once more. Plus, Thor had been talking non-stop of how his girl, the brilliant and beautiful Dr. Jane Foster, was going to be there. Sam had invited the WW2 vets from the local VA, and promised to bail Steve out of the inevitable and increasingly uncomfortable encounters with women and men who were hoping to match words with him. Bucky, who said he was going to put in a brief appearance for the camera’s sake, thought it was hilarious that his punk friend was getting so much attention when the time was he'd gotten none. 

He hoped to slip into the room mostly unnoticed and make his way to where he could see Sam and a few older men at a card table, but his plan was foiled when Thor called his name the minute he stepped inside. Everyone stopped briefly to look, and Steve took a moment to mentally prepare before quickly walking to where Thor and Nastsha were standing with two others. The woman standing closer to Thor was small but had apparent energy, waving bare arms about in a blue dress, while the other wore a tight long-sleeved number in deep red that ended midway down her thighs, showcasing her curves. 

Thor’s shout had interrupted Darcy’s conversation with Natasha - whom she was most definitely not fangirling over. At all. When Steve started to walk their way, Natasha grabbed a glass from a nearby tray and poured a bit of the mead from Thor’s flask into it. He took it with a grateful tilt of his head when he reached them while Thor began to speak. 

“Shield-brother, Steven! I must introduce my beloved, Dr. Jane Foster. Jane, this is Steven, the Captain of America.” 

Steve looked to Jane and spoke. “It’s great to finally meet you, Dr. Foster. Thor speaks very highly of you and I've heard Dr. Banner speak about your work a time or two.” 

“Thank you. And please, Jane is fine. It's nice to meet you too. Oh! And this is Darcy, of course, my wonderful lab slash personal assistant!” Jane flourished her arms to the right, directing his attention to her. 

Steve was about to speak when Thor added, “Lady Darcy is also a fierce warrior of electricity!” Steve watched her face light up in smug pleasure and raised a brow before taking a quick drink. 

“Well then, I am pleased to meet the wonderful Lady Darcy.”

The smile seemed to freeze on her face and Steve immediately worried he'd said the wrong thing. Maybe only Thor called her Lady Darcy? She opened her mouth, then shut it again before giving him an intense once-over, from head to toe and back again before she shook her head a little, still staring at him. 

“I just always thought you'd be older,” she said. 

Oh. Oh. She was, Darcy was his soulmate. This dame with knockout curves in red was his soulmate. He found himself unwilling to look away from her - her full lips painted red, slowly turning up in a smile, her glossy brown curls, her beautiful blue eyes looking out at him from behind dark-rimmed glasses. He heard Natasha dragging Thor and Jane away and told himself he'd thank her later. 

“Technically I'm 98. I always thought you'd be younger.” 

“Just turned 26 last month.”

“I'm glad.” He smiled, wishing he could take her hand and leave the party, publicity be damned. 

“Me too.” She smiled back at him. 

 

Maybe the universe knew what it was doing after all.


End file.
